Nifty seeing support at 8,300; ITC, Sun Pharma up 3%

Markets continued to remain weak in noon trades weighed down by capital goods and bank shares

Markets continued to trade weak in noon trades on Monday weighed down by capital goods and bank shares, However, the Nifty is seen finding strong support at 8,300 levels backed by defensive shares.

At 1:15PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 87 points at 27,781 and the 50-share Nifty was down 27 points at 8,310.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities to the tune of Rs 2,537 crore on Friday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

The Indian rupee was trading higher by 15 paise at 61.46 to the US dollar on fresh selling of dollars by banks and exporters in the wake of strong foreign capital inflows.

Asian markets are mostly trading higher with the exception of Japanese shares which witnssed profit takin after recent gains. Robust US jobs data signalled that the US economy is back on the growth track while China's export data indicated more resilience than some had expected. China's exports rose 11.6% in October, lower than 15.3% growth in September but better-than-expected growth of 10.6%. Imports were weaker than expected.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei ended down 0.6% at 16,780.53. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is up 1.4% and China’s Shanghai Composite has surged 2.2% while Straits Times is up 0.6%.

European shares are trading mixed with FTSE-100 up 0.2% while CAC-40 and DAX were down 0.9% each.

BSE Capital Goods, Bankex, Auto, Oil and Gas indices were the top losers down 0.7-1.3% each. Meanwhile, FMCG index was up 2.2% and Healthcare index was up 0.6%.

Larsen and Toubro was down 2.5% on reports that the company management has said it might miss the annual revenue and margin forecast owing to delays in projects and problems in execution of hydrocarbon projects.

In the oil and gas space, Reliance Industries and ONGC were down 0.6-3% each.

Bank shares witnessed profit taking after gaining last week.ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank were down 0.5-1.6% each.

Auto shares continued to remain weak on the back of sluggish October sales growth. Tata Motors, M&M, Maruti Suzuki and Bajaj Auto were down 0.4-2.4% each.

Defensive shares were among the top gainers. FMCG major ITC was up 3.6% while Hindustan Unilever gained 0.5%.

In the pharma segment, Sun Pharma was up 3% after its US subsidiary, Taro Pharmaceutical Industries, reported a strong 49% year on year growth in net profit to $143.4 million for the quarter ended September 2014. Dr Reddy's Labs was up 0.9%.

Among other shares, Shares of Gujarat State Petronet were up nearly 3% at Rs 100, after hitting a 52-week high on the BSE, as net profit for the secong quarter ended September 2014 surged nearly 50% to Rs 169.50 crore on the back of lower finance costs.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.1% and Small-cap index was  trading flat with negative bias.

Market breadth continues to remain weak with 1,429 losers and 1,312 gainers on the BSE.